>>I was one that didn't belived the default option for distros would make people choose gnome after KDE or vice-versa, but now I see every day some friends trying out Ubuntu or Fedora, and they don't even know what KDE is.

Well, Fedora (RedHat) has always been a gnome-distribution. So no change there. Still, they also ship KDE. For some reason they can't afford not including KDE (there is also a strong kde community within the fedora community)

Looking at ubuntu, you actually see the same thing happening. Ubuntu started as a pure Gnome-distribution, but in no time there was a KDE variant available (Kubuntu). Now kubuntu is so strong that canonical gave it the same status as ubuntu!!

Also in a lot of countries in Europe there was a Linux Starter Guide available. That magazine used Kubuntu as reference, not Ubuntu.

So, how is KDE loosing momentum?

Speaking of SUSE; SUSE does not ship with a default desktop, you can choose between kde and gnome during installation.

That wasn't my intention, I didn't plan anytime attack gnome, I belive our problem isn't them.
It's jsut that for some reason distros seems those days to like gnome more, work more on it, letting KDE aside. (Hapilly KDE community is showing to be strong and working well without major distro support).

Maybe because distros hire a lot of developers for creating work as beagle, themes, f-spot, etc, so they can work full-time on the desktop?
Sure there are KDE developers hired too, sure a strong community can overdoo hired people.

I DIDN'T SAID this was the end of the world!! People alwyas tend to start flaming even when it's not your intention to start a war, I just wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help out... :-(

I'm a GNOME and Windows XP/Classic user and I, for one, welcome the move of a native QT4/GPL port for Windows. This allows QT and KDE applications as well as KDE itself to be more popular on Windows. I'm eager to replace OO.o with KOffice on Windows to name one example and Kalzium or whatever its called would also be very useful for me, on Windows.

The GPL vs LGPL issue is milked and IMO the arguments you raise are not wrong at all. If you want a good discussion on that I suggest you try better and certainly not include it in a main argument about popularity. Popularity is just that, popularity. It says nothing about quality and its the question wether you want to be popular, the implications, etcetera ad infinitum.

trolltech still makes money with Qt, so apparently, the license is not that much of a problem.
Speaking of distros: all major distros ship with kde (either as default or as alternative), so no problem over there...

>>No, they settled on Gnome because they bought a gnome company. It doesn't make sense to buy a company that uses somekind of technology and then flush it completely down the drain.

So why did they buy Ximian in the first place? Clearly KDE is(was) superior development technology. Oh yeah, we already know the reason. Novell would be insanse to have to rely on a toolkit in which they and their customers have to pay for non-GPL compatible work.

So the whole "don't talk about it and it doesn't exist" is ridiculous. For years you could wish that Trolltech would get bought out and the license would be liberalized, but we're at the point now that it probably won't matter if that happens.

Well, Novell wanted to gain ground on the linux market. They wanted to buy SUSE, but could not raise enough money. So they bought Ximian in stead.
Later on, they could raise the money to buy SUSE ass well (thanks to ibm and others), so they went ahead.

>>Novell would be insanse to have to rely on a toolkit in which they and their customers have to pay for non-GPL compatible work.

Yup, we all know it's a bad thing to charge your customers for license fees. That's why Microsoft Windows never got any momentum on the desktop market (oh wait, it actually does!!)

>> For years you could wish that Trolltech would get bought out and the license would be liberalized, but we're at the point now that it probably won't matter if that happens.

indeed.
Shame on trolltech for wanting to earn money on their product
Shame on trolltech for releasing Qt under the gpl, which is completely against what opensource stands for
shame on trolltech for making it impossible to use gtk/wxwidgets/name-your-opensource-toolkit/etc under KDE

How could they be so silly, not realising that software development under linux should be completely free of charge.

>>And all major distros have E16 packages too. So you might not like that Ubuntu, Fedora, and Novell's desktops are Gnome default, but even you have to deal with reality.

difference is that E16 is shipped for convenience (not on novell by the way), while kde is well integrated as an alternative.
As with novell's desktop, there is no difference between kde and gnome, and many companies choose kde over gnome on novell. Novell gives 7 years of support on kde-installations as well on gnome installations. When you install Novell, you can choose between kde and gnome. Both are equal.

As for ubuntu, kubuntu is wel integrated and gets more popular every day.
Most ubuntu users come from redhat and debian, both are desktops that default to gnome since their beginning. So no new users over there, just a shift between gnome oriented distributions.

Looking at your replies, i guess you are a jealous gnome user that can't stand that kde wins serveys everytime...

As long as the most used and hyped distributions of the moment choose Gnome by default, KDE will lose many users to Gnome. I'd bet some are using Gnome just because XGL works far better with Gnome at this time, also.

Those other choices (17%) are not accounted for by the LQ survey. So maybe those 17% prefer KDE to Gnome if deprived of their favorite choice. Maybe they use KDE the desktop environment with another window manager instead of KWin - after all the DesktopLinux poll says "windowing environments", while LQ says "desktop environments", which explains why all those 17%-choices weren't available on LQ.

So while Gnome does indeed score higher in on poll than in the other, I don't see any reason to panic.

On the other hand perhaps this just yields the significant/interesting discovery that many people combine KDE with alternate window managers.

Why are so many people using Thunderbird ?
While there are some webpages where konqueror has problems, so that there is some reason to prefer Firefox, kmail works perfectly for me since 1998 or something like this.
So, what did the Thunderbird team do to get so much attention ?

Alex

P.S. (k|X)ubuntu 30 percent, more than twice as much as the second place, that's more than impressive

...and I was annoyed with all the KMail disabilities and so I dumped it in favour of Sylpheed. It may be less featured and I actualle miss some of the stuff I had in KMail, but it's far more stable, quicker and confortable to use.

As for the Thunderbird, I tried it once, but I was appaled with its Windows-like approach (1. users are morons, 2. they want the screen to be as cluttered as possible, it makes them feel professional, 3. everybody loves emoticons and other graphical intrusions all over the screen), so I never actually started using it.

one strong point for thunderbird and ff: they're available on windows. so, using them on linux is less scary for newbies.
yet anoither reason why I want kde4 to be ready yesterday ;)
FF really gets on my nerves, but on windows I use it - anything's better than IE.

People who spam distrowatch are not representative of ALL linux users.

For e.g. - look at Ubuntu and fedora. Do you really think that ubuntu has that much of mindshare ? And did you believe that about fedora a couple of years back, when most people voted fedora ? I have been using linux for > 5 years and I have been to LUG meetings etc and I haven't yet met anyone using ubuntu personally. I think that ubuntu is out to market itself and so is gnome.

Most distros still prefer KDE. Few ( if any) linux users use ubuntu. They just might not visit distrowatch.

I haven't met anybody who doesn't use Ubuntu yet (in real life I mean not just on the forums). Using Kubuntu and promoting that version instead of Ubuntu but the ones that used ubuntu before I knew them, all use gnome. Ubuntu is having a big mindshare anyway, perhaps not with the oldies, but certainly with the newbies and they learn fast enough.

I know many Ubuntu users. Both personally and over the net. Its kinda like Debian on acid  APT/DPKG + ridiculously fresh packages; two reasons why people could like it :)

For one (at least a while ago when I still used it), Debian seems to have a Gnome preference. And so did Ubuntu until the officialisation of Kubuntu. I doubt you could say that Debian too isnt used by more than a few linux users.

Debian is big distro and has strong KDE side. KDE packages are recent (at least in sid), there are lots of KDE/Qt apps in the repository, debian-kde mailing list is much more active than debian-gtk-gnome etc., so KDE is doing well at least here in the free world ;)

I'm still seeing the people who prefer KDE, running KDE. I'm seeing the people who prefer Gnome running gnome. The ones who don't know, run whatever the default is.

Doesn't really matter which desktop you run-- Chances are, there's a software package you Really Need the Other Desktop for. So the best bet for being able to install random application is to have both, and have both kept up to date, which will lead to people trying both.

Truth is, every now and then, I fire up Gnome. Then I try to extend my panel across both monitors, turn on window snap, and active borders between screens...

And log out, and go back to KDE.

As for SuSE, I've got some 7.x CD's somewhere around here, and I've used it steadily since. Gnome might be the default, but KDE is still well supported by the openSuSE team. The only developments for Gnome that haven't made it to KDE (yet) are the "Control Center" and the new "Slab" menu from SLED.

Well, openSUSE has no default - you get the option of Gnome, KDE or 'other' with none preselected, but SLED/SLES defaults to Gnome.

The 'Slab' type menu is being brought to KDE for openSUSE 10.2 - one of the SUSE guys (binneri perhaps? my spelling is probably way out, sorry) blogged that it will be in openSUSE 10.2 alpha 4 - don't know whether it is actually good, but I know a lot of gnome people who like slab.

Yeah, pretty much what I do too. I always try to give a chance to the other desktop environments, but eventually Ill end up going back to KDE anyway. Gnome might be relatively small and fast, but there are things I dont like in it, want to change them and theres just no way to  take open everything in a new file manager window; thats so Windows 95, even Microsoft have given up on it in 1998!

But at the same time, there are a handful of programs that just really kick the butts of their KDE counterparts. KCharSelect sucks  I cant live without gucharmap, for example. Buggy too, but much less unusable :)

re Control Centre: We do have kcontrol for ages, and we do have a new System Settings thing (at least here in Kubuntu Edgy) whose program name I never bothered to look up  I think they do a nice job at being a control centre.

For me "The" Best thing about kde desktop is Konqueror. I don't know what i will do without it. I also like kate as i start using it more.
I have not used its multimedia capability.
The Worst appl i ever used is kdevlop i hate it others love it.
I use konqueror for my all browsing needs i find it very neat and clean.
long live konqueror ...

Funny, because for me it was my use of KDevelop that convinced me to start using KDE full time at home. I can't wait to see what improvements are made in KDevelop for KDE 4 (heck, even the changes in KDevelop 3.4 sound pretty exciting).